phil wrote:Well, I'm still curious about the tense that is usuall translated as "having put aside", which if my very rudimentary knowledge of Pali is correct would be something with a "-tva" in it.Sayadaw U Silananda says that though that is usually translated as "having put aside" and while there is grammatical reason to do so, it is not correct in his opinion to translate it that way. But I still wonder how we can do that, just ignore the grammatical form used in the original Pali...

I agree with the sayadaw's translation and don't think that he is ignoring the grammatical form. In a sentence that comprises an absolutive like vineyya or vinayitvaa followed by a finite verb, there are several possibilities as to how the actions denoted by the two verbs might be temporally related. Pali primers naturally focus on the commonest one: "Having done this, he then did that." But the next most common construction is one in which the absolutive refers to some ongoing action that is simultaneous with the action of the finite verb. For example, "she walks holding a parasol" would be expressed in Pali as "saa chatta.m gahetvaa gacchati", literally, "she, having held a parasol, walks."

I think there's still some controversy over how to interpret the vineyya in "vineyya loke abhijjhadomanassam". It's standard to translate it as "having given up grief and covetuousness in regard of the world", where vineyya's absolutive form is given its plain absolutive connotation (ie hindrances have already been abandoned in the past).

Ven Analayo thinks that this is not a tenable reading and suggests that the vineyya should be read as a motive and purpose of satipatthana, rather than a means to it.

To be able to do this, the absolutive must then be able to be read as an infinitive. This does not appear to be unprecedented, given Gombrich's views here -

Tse Fu Kuan also makes the same point in his "Mindfulness in Early Buddhism". He makes the interesting observation that the 2 Commentaries on the Satipatthana Suttas do not seem to agree on this point, which could simply point to the Digha Commentary being corrupted and diverging from the position in the Majjhima Commentary. It appears that the Majjhima Commentary explains the phrase as a fruit of satipatthana. Here's the extract -

The commentary on the Mahasatipatthana Sutta (Sv III 759) reads: abhijjhadomanassavinayena bhavanabalam (same in CSCD) vuttan ti. This gloss also occurs in the commentary to the Satipatthana Sutta of the Majjhima NikAya (Ps I 244), but it has phala (same in CSCD) instead of bala. Ven. Nyanuttara probably refers to the reading in Ps rather than Sv. Searching CSCD, I only found one other occurrence of this expression at Patis-a I 177, which has phala instead of bala, agreeing with the reading of Ps.

The issue is controversial, as how the vineyya is interpreted could mean that Satipatthana bhavana is a "Vipassana" practice, or that it is a mere Samatha practice.

Yet there's one more possibility. The Spk gloss mentioned by Rupert Gethin may be understood as well in the present time sense: "removing: removing by removing-by-opposite (tadaṅga-pahana), or by removing-by-stopping (vikkhambhana-pahana)", as explained by Ven. Dhammanando in the above quote.

Should we treat viharati to be a finite verb here, since I think the viharati is either -

- functioning as an auxillary (if one follows the idiomatic interpretation of vedanānupassī as a verb, rather than as the adjective "as a feeling contemplator"); or- not an auxillary, but in which case, why does it not follow the normal syntactic convention of being at the tail of the sentence?

Secondly, I am not sure if the Bhikkhunupassaya Sutta furnishes the nexus between the verb and the remedial action directed against the defilements. That sutta seems to be premised on the fact that when the defilements assail, one no longer abides/viharati as a contemplator. When embarking on the remedies, it appears that the action "directs" (paṇidahati) lies between 2 moments of abiding as a contemplator, since one consciously terminates the exercise when seeing that the remedy has fulfilled its work.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

PS - I wonder if anyone noticed how bold Ven D was in opting for the contemporaneity reading, instead of the Commentarial vinayitvā.

Thanks so much, Dmytro! Looks like even BB reads the Comy interpretation as importing 'past' action, probably due to the standard interpretation of jhana having first suppressed the Hindrances. I wonder if BB consulted the Tika on this?

Personally, whether we take the contemporaneity interpretation or Gombrich's more exo:tic infinitive explanation, I think both are virtually indistinguishable in the end result, ie establishment of mindfulness results IN the Hindrances being subdued. I think this is preferable to the interpretation that mindfulness results FROM the Hindrances being suppressed. That would be somewhat inconsistent with the contemplation of Hindrances in the 4th section.

However, much as I like this interpretation, I'm still puzzled by the break from the syntactic convention. I find the same syntax only in the 3rd case of aparakaalakiriyaa given by Ven D. What do you think?

Sylvester wrote:However, much as I like this interpretation, I'm still puzzled by the break from the syntactic convention. I find the same syntax only in the 3rd case of aparakaalakiriyaa given by Ven D. What do you think?

Would you please explain, what do you mean by the break from the syntactic convention?

I usually find the main verb at the end, while the absolutive would feature in the earlier part of the sentence. This is not the case in the standard mindfulness formula, so I was just wondering if that formula is an exception to the convention.

Sylvester wrote:I usually find the main verb at the end, while the absolutive would feature in the earlier part of the sentence. This is not the case in the standard mindfulness formula, so I was just wondering if that formula is an exception to the convention.

IMHO, this order rather reflects the sequence of events "dhamma.m sutvaa gaama.m paccaagacchati" in the case of 1) Pubbakaalakiriyaa-uttarakaalakiriyaa.

In the case of contemporaneity, there's no fixed sequence.I observe this as well in Ukrainian and Russian.

Also - in fusional languages the word order can vary a lot, since the grammatical role of the words can be seen from suffixes and endings.